Portait Photography this Spring

Apr 4, 2016 | News & Events, Workshops

This weekend the Learning Studio brought in Asia Eidson to lead two workshops in portrait photography. Asia is an ACU grad and LS alum now running a wedding photography business in Dallas. This was our first advanced photography workshop focused on portraiture, and we had talented groups of faculty and students who worked with student models to gain experience shooting their own natural-light outdoor portraits.

option4-2Powered by Adobe Lightroom CC

One powerful part of both workshops was getting to hear a professional walk through her workflow for bringing hundreds of photos into Adobe Lightroom to organize, edit, and export high quality images for print and web. Many who picked up Adobe’s advanced image editing software for the first time were producing striking images by the end of the workshop.

If you’re looking for a way to jump-start your own image-making this spring and can’t wait for our next workshop, check out Lightroom CC Essentials on Lynda.com.

Special thanks to the ACU student models and to Rachel and Chris Riley for a great couple days of location shooting.

Web Portfolio
http://www.photobyjoy.com

Design workshop back in LS

Feb 29, 2016 | News & Events

This last week the Art & Design department brought Andy Pratt back to campus to lead a workshop on Interactive Design. He led the workshop with ACU alum Paige Baumgartner who met Andy on a trip to New York City in 2013 led by Mike Wiggins and Ryan Feerer where students visited a number of agencies. We were glad to have both of them back on campus and sharing their work in the main studio.

Andy Pratt WorkshopAbout Andy

Andy has fifteen years of experience creating award-winning interactive media. He is an Executive Creative Director for Favorite Medium, a global design and technology agency with offices in Seoul and Singapore. Prior to this, he worked as a creative director at Funny Garbage, an interactive agency in New York City. This position afforded him the opportunity to work with some of the largest brands in the world, including the Smithsonian Institution, Cartoon Network, Noggin, Lego and Turner Broadcasting. His vision and strategy is showcased in apps, websites and on air content for these powerhouses, among many others.

Web Portfolio

Awards
Emmy Award Winner, Global Media Award Nominee (x2), Webby Award Winner (x4), Webby Award People’s Voice Winner (x2), Webby Award Honoree, Webby Award Nominee (x10), Times Magazine Top 50 Sites, 21st Annual Mark Award Gold (x2), 21st Annual Mark Award Silver, Creativity 34 Winner, Interactive Media Award (x3), Print Regional Design Annual, Communicator Award, W3 Award (x3), HOW Interactive Design Award (x3), Spark Award Nominee

 

Episode Xmas Premiere

Dec 18, 2015 | Adobe CC, News & Events, Students

Thanks to the ACU faculty and students who joined us in the Learning Studio last week to audition for Star Wars: The Final Exam.

The #EpisodeXmas event went well and we wanted to share a quick trailer before you head to the theatre to see the actual film. The students brought great energy, costumes, and some mad jedi skills to the event.

In case you’re looking to create your own Star Wars trailer over the holidays, here were a couple blog posts on adding some Adobe CC magic to your next project.

    Special thanks to faculty who joined us on the day (hoping not to leave anyone out): Cole Bennett, Dena Counts, Brad Crisp, Cherisse Flanagan Houston Heflin, David Kneip, Andy Little, Steven Moore, Jason Morris, Laura and Mark Phillips, Brent Reeves, Tracy Shilcutt, Jessica Smith, and Jeanine Varner.

    Episode Xmas: Behind the Scenes

    Dec 7, 2015 | Adobe CC, News & Events

    This year’s Christmas promotion gave us a chance to highlight the creativity of ACU students and faculty as well as a few of the media specialists in the Learning Studio.

    Knowing that Episode VII would be on the minds of many on campus during Finals Week, we thought we’d tap into the excitement by asking Ben Todd, one of our student media specialists, to complete some original animations that would appear on digital signage, the web, and in a life-size cut-out as students came upstairs to study. He completed original drawings of Han, Leia and Chewbaca that appeared in a range of promotional materials.

    Our full-time media production staff came up with the #EpisodeXmas tag as well as the tie-ins to Adobe Creative Cloud we rolled out on the blog.

    Finally, Nathan Driskell produced the logo and the graphic design behind the campaign as well as a short film about Ben’s creative process delivering the original animations.

    All around it was an exciting week in the Learning Studio and already has us looking forward to Episode VIII.

     

     

    Green Screen Action with Premiere Pro CC

    Dec 4, 2015 | Adobe CC, News & Events

    In preparation for the next chapter in the Star Wars saga, we’re thinking about ways to combine the power of Adobe Creative Cloud with some Jedi mojo to awaken your creative force.

    The visual effects behind the first Star Wars films were a galaxy far, far away from the digital tools available on any laptop or phone today. But the effects wizards at Lucasfilm have been using green/blue screen effects from the beginning.

     

    You probably know we’ve been checking out portable green screens for some time (LS Unboxed video https://vimeo.com/60284641 ), but this spring trained students and faculty will now have access to the full green-screen studio upstairs in the Learning Studio. Take some time over the break to learn how easy it is to use the built-in green screen tools available in Premiere Pro CC by following the link below.

    Adobe CC Green Screen Workflow 

    EpisodeXmas-Hashtag

    Also, be sure to follow us on Twitter (@learningstudio) or Facebook (aculearningstudio) and share your best Star Wars Christmas puns to #episodexmas for a chance to win a Jedi prize!

    “Luke, I am your Proctor”

    Star Wars Practice Exams are here & at the Learning Studio front desk to help you prepare for the Star Wars Final Exam on Monday for the Episode Xmas Grand Prize Win!!!!

    STAR WARS – Practice Test